Menu

Tag: conference sneak peek

We’re closing in on HRevolution 2015 in beautiful Saint Louis, and we are happy to announce the location for this year’s event. We will be at the Morgan Street Brewery Lodge, a stylish setup and an all-around fun place to visit.

Why this place?

Well, I’ll have to take you back 2010 to explain. That year we held HRev in Chicago, and we had an amazingly creative location picked out. The entire building seemed geared toward creative thinking, and it has remained a perpetual favorite of HRevolution attendees for years. So we decided to try and one-up that location with this phenomenal find.

But why Saint Louis, of all places? One key reason is because my cofounder, Trish McFarlane, lives there! We have hosted this amazing event at various locations since 2009, and this is the first time we’ve held it in her hometown. We have a great group of long-time HRev fans living in and around the STL area, so we know that it will be a great experience for those looking for a unique HR event.

Thinking about it? On the fence? Wondering if it’s worth your while?

Come. It’s worth the drive. You won’t get a legal update. You will get excited and passionate about HR. If you’re not excited about working in HR and the potential impact you can have, then this probably isn’t the event for you. If you consistently hear “you’re not like any HR/recruiting person I’ve ever met,” then this is what you have been waiting for. Plus we’ve created a first-timer’s discount! Just use “firsttime” when you register and you’ll get 20% off the ticket price.

Previous attendees have told me HRevolution is the single most important event they look forward to all year long. And while other events cost $500-1000+ to attend, HRev is just Why not see if the same is true for you?

And last but not least, our sponsor lineup is being finalized (any others interested should contact Trish), and we are proud to have Globoforce and Quantum Workplace down as supporters this year.

HRevolution is an event that helps to drive the HR profession forward. Sometimes that’s because we cover innovative new concepts, and sometimes because we cover topics that nobody else will touch. This session looks at a leading edge concept in the HCM space…

Beyond Social: The Rise of Workforce Marketing led by Jason Seiden

Let’s build off this statement: if social media is a conversational tool, then the key to leveraging it for your business is to engage the people inside your company (your employees) in conversation with external stakeholders (say, like, prospective employees, clients, and investors).

But how? In theory, we all know exactly what to do: give employees a reason to root for the company, provide a model of success they can follow, celebrate their wins and talk to them about mistakes in a supportive manner, and generally lead them and then get out of their way as they figure out how to follow your lead.

But… though we all know all this, we also know one more thing: our companies don’t do this—or do this poorly. We set out to do all this good stuff, and somehow land in a place where we’re handing out policies thick with “thou shalt nots,” and substituting meaningful leadership with 1-pagers stuffed with generic “Top 10 tips and tricks.”

For 4 years, Jason and his team have been undoing this disconnect. Their secret: it’s not just about what you do, it’s about how you execute it. During this session Jason will share his model, unpack his data, and open it all up to wherever our discussion leads.

We’re gearing up for HRevolution 2013, and we’re sharing sneak peeks of the content you can expect in Vegas. Big thanks to the team at Reputation Capital Media for helping us create these HRevolution previews. This week, the Reputation Capital team caught up with China Gorman.

In today’s business environment, change is the only thing that seems to remain constant. For business leaders and human resource professionals, that change can be daunting, with continuous work to introduce and integrate new technologies, programs and policies. So, it’s helpful to learn from innovators who are able to embrace change and use it to keep their companies and employees competitive, engaged, productive and profitable.

Enter China Gorman, business leader and human capital management expert. China is the new CEO of Great Place to Work, a global organization located in 42 countries around the world, and the survey power and analysis behind Fortune’s 100 Best Places to Work list. Great Place to Work provides solutions like assessment tools, trainings, advisory services, conferences and workshops to help companies of all sizes become great places to work.

We talked to China about her upcoming session at HRevolution and her perspective on change management. Here are the highlights of our discussion.

As a business leader, what advice can you give companies and HR leaders that are trying to step into new ways of operating?

From the leadership perspective, new ways of operating aren’t the goal. The goal is more effective operating, processes and behaviors. Greater success in the marketplace, greater success on any business KPI (sales impact, profitability, all of the normal sales KPIs) — that’s the point. The world is changing rapidly, and so to be more effective, to be more efficient, to be more successful, on any KPI, we have to look at doing things in new ways and using the new and emerging tools to helps us to do that. As a business leader, I look to HR like I look to finance, marketing, product development and IT: to constantly know what tools are available in their functional area that are going to help us be more successful in the marketplace which is changing rapidly.

What are some tell-tale signs that it’s time for a company to overhaul its HR processes?

If people aren’t getting paid correctly and on-time. If turnover is increasing. If there are no development activities whatsoever going on. If people don’t accept your job offers.

Many HR departments fear change. How have you tackled this fear and used change to your advantage?

Whether you’re changing a process or introducing a new technology, training has to be ubiquitous. It has to be in every language your organization speaks, it has to be in every shift that your organization works, and it has to be available on multiple platforms.

When you’re introducing change, you’re taking productive, intelligent adults and moving them from some level of competence to a level of incompetence and there’s nothing more de-motivating or stressful for a productive working adult than to be made to feel incompetent. So, moving them out of incompetence to competence as fast as possible has to be the focus.

When you’re introducing a new system, most organizations build in training because, of course you want people to be able to use it. Then, when the execution plan and project go long and over budget, which they all do, the first thing that gets cut is training. I would maintain that training is the last thing that should get cut. In fact, if it’s going long and over budget, you need to put more money and more resources into training.

Your session is titled “Is Early Adoption in HR’s DNA?” Can you discuss what attendees can look forward to learning in your session?

This session will be highly interactive — more of a discussion. I will introduce models for us to think about. One is the Rogers diffusion of innovation model, which is the innovator, early adopter, late adopter, laggard model. Most HR people are familiar with the language, but not with the model.

I’ll also talk a little bit about a model which the Gartner researchers and analysis team uses, which is called a hype cycle. We’ll look at the overlay of how people respond to and adopt change and how technology solutions get adopted in the business world. We’ll overlay those and have a discussion about HR’s role as change agent and change support in the adoption of new technology.

As a speaker at HR Revolution, what are you hoping your audience walks away with after your session?

Greater confidence in their ability to lead change.

What motivates you to do the work that you do?

My team motivates me. The work that we do motivates me. The mission of our work motivates me. It is quite literally my dream job. I’ve joined an incredible organization with a truly inspirational mission: to change society by transforming workplaces into great places to work. Who couldn’t love and support a team that is all about that?

Since 2009, HRevolution has been creating unique opportunities for HR professionals, recruiters, consultants, and vendors to come together to discuss and debate the future of HR. HRevolution 2013 is on October 6 in Las Vegas. All past events have sold out, so be sure to register today!

Who’s excited for HRevolution 2013? Over the next few weeks, we’ll be sharing sneak peeks of the content you can expect in Vegas. Big thanks to the team at Reputation Capital Media for helping us create these HRevolution previews. This week, the Reputation Capital team caught up with Dwane Lay.

Behind every successful HR program is a fine-tuned process. To figure out just what processes they need in place, companies turn to process design experts like Dwane Lay.

Dwane is the head of HR process design at Dovetail Software and an HRevolution veteran. As a process design expert, Dwane is responsible for analyzing, defining, documenting and communicating HR processes and best practices within his company and within the HR community. He is also the author of Lean HR, a book that helps HR pros implement lean principles and practices.

Last week, we connected with Dwane to learn more about HR process design and what keeps him coming back to HRevolution.

You’re an HRevolution veteran. What keeps you coming back?

The networking and the connections. We used to think of it as our social media family reunion, but a funny thing happened when the show paired up with HR Tech. The attendees changed. Now we see new faces each time, which is great, but we also are pulling in a different type of profile. It’s less social media, though that is still prevalent, and more forward-thinking and technology savvy practitioner, not to mention the C-level executives who join us each year. It’s a unique attendee group that you don’t see anywhere else.

In a world of exponential technology growth, what advice can you give HR professionals to help them stay up-to-date with the changing technology landscape?

Three things.

Know your world. Take the time to learn about your systems, your vendor partners and your total technology profile.

Know your limitations. Where are you strong, and where are the gaps? Where would a focused improvement create a lot of value for your organization?

Get yourself a good partner. More than one, if you can. Get to know the players in your own IT group and project leadership team. They will be great resources for you when it is time to make a change, or at least consider one.

As a process design expert, what are some key indicators that a company needs to improve its operations?

Probably the best indicator that your processes need love is not being able to find any documentation on them. We leave too much to tribal knowledge and hope we never lose a really important person. Don’t worry that your processes won’t be perfect. (They won’t. A world-class transaction process is 75% waste.) But getting agreement on how things are done is the first step to deciding how to make them better.

Rebuilding an HR process can be daunting. How do you make the process more approachable?

I like a focused approach. Set your scope up front, including what you are working on and what you are NOT working on. Then, get people on the team who have no idea what the process is all about. They make it okay to ask very basic questions, which can lead to great discussion, not to mention great discoveries.

As a speaker at HR Revolution, what do you hope your audience walks away with after your session?

I’m leading a session, with help from a few friends, called “Top That.” We all know that HR people love to tell stories, as anyone who has come to an event will tell you. So we’re going to make it a structured storytelling event. We will invite attendees to tell their best story in several categories, and award prizes to the best in each. I hope the takeaways include knowing that whatever you are dealing with, you aren’t the first; whatever you dread, it could be worse; and however it may feel at times, you are not alone. We are all in this together. A few laughs wouldn’t hurt, either.

Since 2009, HRevolution has been creating unique opportunities for HR professionals, recruiters, consultants, and vendors to come together to discuss and debate the future of HR. HRevolution 2013 is on October 6 in Las Vegas. All past events have sold out, so be sure to register today!